when the people were most eminently perplexed with false prophets, both as to their number and subtilty, yet God lays their eternal and temporal safety, or ruin, on their discerning aright between his word and that which was only pretended so to be. And that they might not complain of this imposition, he tenders them security of its easiness of performance. Speaking of his own word comparatively, as to every thing that is not so, he says, it is as wheat to chaff, which may infallibly, by being what it is, be discerned from it; and then absolutely, that it hath such properties, as that it will discover itself, even light, and heat, and power. A person then who was truly JeóTVEVOTOS, was to be attended unto, because he was so.

As then was said before, the Scriptures being JeótvevOTOι, is not the case the same, as with a man that was so? is there any thing in the writing of it by God's command, that should impair its authority? nay, is it not freed from innumerable prejudices that attended it, in its first giving out by men; arising from the personal infirmities, and supposed interests of them that delivered it? Jer. xliii. 3. John ix. 29. Acts xxiv. 5.

This being pleaded by it, and insisted on, its testimony is received, or it is not. If it be received on this account, there is in it we say the proper basis and foundation of faith, whereon it hath its vπóoraσic, or subsistence.'. If it be rejected, it must be not only with a refusal of its witness, but also with a high detestation of its pretence to be from God. What ground or plea for such a refusal and detestation any one hath, or can have, shall be afterward considered. If it be a sin to refuse it, it had been a duty to receive it: if a duty to receive it as the word of God, then was it sufficiently manifested so to be. Of the objection arising from them who pretend to this inspiration falsely, we have spoken before; and we are as yet dealing with them that own the book whereof wespake to be the word of God, and only call in question the grounds on which they do so, or on which others ought so to do. As to these it may suffice, that in the strength of all the authority and truth they profess to own and acknowledge in it, it declares the foundation of its acceptance to be no other, but its own divine inspiration;. hence it is λόγος πάσης ἀποδοχῆς ἄξιος.

Again, in that dispute that was between Abraham and the rich man, Luke xvi. 31. about the best and most effec tual means of bringing men to repentance. The rich man in hell, speaking his own conception, fixes upon miracles; if one rise from the dead, and preach, the work will be done: Abraham is otherwise minded; that is, Christ was so, the author of that parable: he bids them attend to Moses and the prophets, the written word, as that which all faith and repentance was immediately to be grounded on. The inquiry being, how men might be best assured, that any message is from God, did not the word manifest itself to be from him, this direction had not been equal.

The ground of the request for the rising of one from the dead, is laid in the common apprehension of men not knowing the power of God in the Scriptures; who think, that if an evident miracle were wrought, all pretences and pleas of unbelief would be excluded; who doth not think so? Our Saviour discovers that mistake, and lets men know, that those who will not own, or submit to, the authority of God in the word, would not be moved by the most signal miracles imaginable. If a holy man, whom we had known assuredly to have been dead for some years, should rise out of his grave, and come unto us with a message from God; could any man doubt whether he were sent unto us of God or no? I suppose not. The rising of men from the dead was the greatest miracle that attended the resurrection of our Saviour; Matt. xxvii. 52, 53. yea greater than his own, if the Socinians may be believed: namely, in that he raised not himself by his own power; yet the evidence of the mission of such a one, and the authority of God speaking in him, our Saviour being judge, is not of an efficacy to enforce belief beyond that which is in the written word, nor a surer foundation for faith to repose itself upon.

Could we hear a voice from heaven, accompanied with such a divine power, as to evidence itself to be from God, should we not rest in it as such? I suppose men think they would; can we think that any man should withdraw his assent, and say, yea but I must have some testimony that this is from God; all such evasions are precluded in the supposition, wherein a self-evidencing power is granted. What greater miracles did the apostles of Christ ever behold, or

hear, than that voice that came ὑπὸ τῆς μεγαλοπρεπούς δόξης, 'from the most excellent glory; This is my beloved Son :' yet Peter, who heard that voice, tells us, that comparatively we have greater security from, and by, the written word, than they had in and by that miraculous voice; we have ßɛβαίοτερον τὸν προφητικὸν λόγον; we heard, saith he, that voice indeed, but we have a more sure word of prophecy to attend unto. More sure, not in itself, but in its giving out its evidence unto us. And how doth it appear so to be? The reason he alleges for it, was before insisted on; 2 Pet. i. 18-20.

How should we be Cannot Satan cause

Yea, suppose that God should speak to us from heaven, as he spake to Moses, or as he spake to Christ; or from some certain place, as Numb. vii. 8, 9. able to know it to be the voice of God? a voice to be heard in the air, and so deceive us? or, may not there be some way in this kind found out, whereby men might impose upon us with their delusions. Pope Celestine thought he heard a voice from heaven, when it was but the cheat of his successor. Must we not rest at last in that Tò Jetov, which accompanies the true voice of God, evidencing itself, and ascertaining the soul beyond all possibility of mistake. Now did not this TEKμnotov accompany the written word at its first giving forth? if it did not, as was said, how could any man be obliged to discern it from all delusions? if it did, how came it to loose it? did God appoint his word to be written, that so he might destroy its authority? If the question be, whether the doctrines proposed to be believed are truths of God, or 'cunningly devised fables,' we are sent to the Scripture itself, and that alone, to give the determination.

CHAP. IV.

Innate arguments in the Scripture, of its divine original and authority. These the formal reason of our believing. Its self-evidencing efficacy. All light manifests itself. The Scripture, light. What kind of light it is. Spiritual light evidential. The ground of men's not discerning this light. Consectaries from the premises laid down. What the self-evidencing light of the Scripture peculiarly is. The proposition of the Scripture as an object of faith is from and by this light. Power, self-evidencing. The Scripture the power of God. And powerful. How this power exerts itself. The whole question resolved.

HAVING given some few instances of those many testimonies, which the Scripture in express terms bears to itself, and the spring, rise, and fountain of all that authority, which it claims among and over the sons of men, which all those who pretend on any account whatever to own and acknowledge its divinity, are bound to stand to, and are obliged by; the second thing proposed, or the innate arguments that the word of God is furnished withal for its own manifestation, and whereby the authority of God is revealed for faith to repose itself upon, comes in the next place into consideration. Now these arguments contain the full and formal grounds of our answer to that inquiry before laid down; namely, why and wherefore we do receive and believe the Scripture to be the word of God. It being the formal reason of our faith, that whereon it is built, and whereunto it is resolved, that is inquired after, we answer as we said before; we do so receive, embrace, believe, and submit unto it, because of the authority of God who speaks it, or gave it forth as his mind and will, evidencing itself by the Spirit in and with that word unto our minds and consciences; or because that the Scripture being brought unto us by the good providence of God, in ways of his appointment and preservation, it doth evidence itself infallibly unto our consciences to be the word of the living God.

The self-evidencing efficacy of the Scripture, and the grounds of it, which consist in common mediums, that have an extent and latitude answerable to the reasons of men, whether as yet they acknowledge it to be the word of God or no,

is that then which in the remainder of this discourse I shall endeavour to clear and vindicate. This only I shall desire to premise, that whereas some grounds of this efficacy seem to be placed in the things themselves contained in the Scripture, I shall not consider them abstractedly as such, but under the formality of their being the Scripture or written word of God; without which consideration and resolution, the things mentioned would be left naked and utterly divested of their authority and efficacy pleaded for; and be of no other nature and importance, than the same things found in other books. It is the writing itself that now supplies the place and room of the persons, in and by whom God originally spake to men. As were the persons speaking of old, so are the writings now: it was the word spoken that was to be believed, yet as spoken by them from God; and it is now the word written that is to be believed, yet as written by the command and appointment of God.

There are then two things, that are accompanied with a self-evidencing excellency; and every other thing doth so, so far as it is partaker of their nature, and no otherwise; now these are, 1. Light. 2. Power for, or in, operation.

1. Light manifests itself. Whatever is light doth so; that is, it doth whatever is necessary on its own part for its manifestation and discovery. Of the defects that are, or may be, in them, to whom this discovery is made, we do not as yet speak: and whatever manifests itself is light; πãv yàp τὸ φανερούμενον, φῶς ἐστι· Eph. v. 13. Light requires neither proof nor testimony for its evidence. Let the sun arise in the firmament, and there is no need of witnesses to prove and confirm unto a seeing man that it is day. A small candle will so do. Let the least child bring a candle into a room that before was dark, and it would be a madness to go about to prove by substantial witnesses, men of gravity and authority, that light is brought in. Doth it not evince itself, with an assurance above all that can be obtained by any testimony whatever? Whatever is light, either naturally or morally so, is revealed by its being so. That which evidenceth not itself, is not light.

That the Scripture is a light, we shall see immediately, That it is so, or can be called so, unless it hath this nature and property of light, to evidence itself, as well as to give